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interior department
Doug Burgum Puts Private Profits Over Public Lands and Tribal Rights
Last month the Interior Department approved new grazing rules that revoke tribal rights to graze bison on federal land in favor of cattle, all to benefit wealthy ranchers.
Jun 12, 2026
When the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held confirmation hearings for current Department of Interior head Doug Burgum, he made it quite clear that he viewed public lands, lands belonging to the American public, as an asset on “America’s balance sheet.” His implication was pretty clear: These public lands should be used to turn a profit.
Public lands belong to all Americans and were set aside for their protection, not for profit. But, no surprise, Burgum fully supports exploitative industries like oil, gas, and mining on public lands, so who’s balance sheet will benefit? At an energy conference in Houston last year he noted, “If we’re going to drill, baby, drill, then we’ve got to be asked to also mine, baby, mine.”
So much for conservation and environmental protection of our public lands! But, like most members of the current administration, he acts like using your office to extract profit wherever possible is acceptable and “smart”—protecting the public trust takes a back seat. In 2024, President Donald Trump asked a gathering of oil and gas executives at his Florida estate hosted by Burgum to raise $1 billion for his campaign, for which in return he would roll back environmental protections requested by the oil industry. In his thinking, that’s smart, a win-win, personal profit for the president and windfall profits for energy companies.
But Burugm also knows there is profit to be made above ground on the public lands that cover large stretches of the Great Plains. Last month the Interior Department approved new grazing rules that revoke tribal rights to graze bison on federal land in favor of cattle, i.e. “production-oriented livestock.”
Aside from money made by extractive industries, administration officials, and ranchers—all at the expense of taxpayers and the environment—there are too few who question why the ongoing racism of the current administration is allowed to continue.
In the early 1800s, upward of 50 million bison roamed the Great Plains; by 1900, fewer than 1,000 were left. An organized campaign of commercial hunting, the government’s desire to subjugate the Native tribes by exterminating their food supply, and the perceived need to close the range for private cattle grazing nearly exterminated the American bison.
Déjà vu.
Tribal efforts to expand the herd, in cooperation with former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland during the Biden administration, prioritized efforts to manage the herd for traditional purposes of food, cultural heritage, and land conservation—and public land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was part of that partnership.
While fees charged for cattle grazing on BLM land are claimed to benefit the US Treasury, these fees do not help Secretary Burgum’s “balance sheet” either. Permitted grazing on BLM land actually costs taxpayers money, while it benefits a small number of mostly rich landowners. True, there are ranchers who use the privilege of grazing public lands responsibly, yet there are others who abuse the privilege, while the administration turns a blind eye and continues to roll back environmental enforcement. Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy continued to illegally graze BLM land in Nevada for years after piling up fees and fines of over $1 million.
Aside from money made by extractive industries, administration officials, and ranchers—all at the expense of taxpayers and the environment—there are too few who question why the ongoing racism of the current administration is allowed to continue. While the outright slaughter of Native tribes as seen in the 1800s is no longer occurring, the government is clearly denying the tribes the right to celebrate their culture, their heritage, and their right to a decent life on land that was once theirs, land where millions of bison grazed, animals that evolved with the native prairie and in effect managed it and put it to its highest use. Land that now, in addition to production-oriented livestock, is covered by millions of acres of corn and soy.
It is unlikely that cattle, corn, and soy will ever be replaced by bison herds on the Great Plains, because as the Coalition of Large Tribes (COLT), which represents more than 50 tribes managing 25,000 bison on land that accounts for about 95% of Indian Country noted, the new Interior Department rules are designed to protect cows and were published without prior consultation with tribes.
It is not nostalgia that bison should graze public lands, especially those adjacent to tribal reservations. Bison are far better environmental stewards than cattle and, for that matter, probably people as well. It is also, perhaps, a pipe dream that this administration would recognize the inherent cultural rights of Native Americans, or any minority for that matter. To them, the extraction of profit for themselves and their corporate cronies is all that matters. But this administration will someday end, and perhaps the next will be more enlightened and respectful of minority rights and common sense.
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Biden Admin Sued for Hiding Records on Opposition to Fossil Fuel Phaseout
The lawsuit aims to "shed light on the Biden administration's dumbfounding refusal to align our country's federal fossil fuel programs with its own climate goals," said one campaigner.
Nov 28, 2023
A national conservation group sued the Biden administration on Tuesday for failing to respond to a public records request pertaining to the Interior Department's dismissal of a petition that called for a phaseout of oil and gas extraction on federal lands and waters.
Submitted last year, the petition from more than 360 environmental and Indigenous organizations called on the Interior Department to initiate a rulemaking process aimed at reducing oil and gas production on public lands and waters by 98% by 2035.
The department rejected the petition earlier this year, claiming that it "has a robust rulemaking agenda already underway to address the climate crisis and implement reforms to our conventional energy programs" and doesn't have adequate resources to "undertake the proposed rulemaking at this time."
The administration's reply came after the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) sued the administration for not responding to the petition for more than a year.
CBD is now taking legal action against the Interior Department again, this time for violating the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
In July, CBD requested that the Interior Department turn over records related to the agency's deliberations about the fossil fuel phaseout petition and its response.
"At the time of the filing of this complaint, over 130 days have passed since the Center submitted its FOIA request to Interior. To date, however, Interior has not provided any requested records," the new lawsuit states. "Accordingly, the Center challenges Interior's FOIA violations resulting from its failure to respond to the Center's request and seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to require Interior to promptly search for and produce all responsive records without further delay."
"The administration needs to explain its failure to take bold, urgent action but instead it's hiding public records."
Taylor McKinnon, CBD's southwest director, said in a statement that the lawsuit "will shed light on the Biden administration's dumbfounding refusal to align our country's federal fossil fuel programs with its own climate goals."
"All-time high federal oil production is causing our planet's life support systems to shut down under the stresses of the climate emergency," said McKinnon. "The administration needs to explain its failure to take bold, urgent action but instead it's hiding public records."
The suit comes days before the start of the COP28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates, closely watched and critically important talks that Biden has decided to skip.
Under Biden's leadership, U.S. crude oil production is on pace to surge to a record 12.9 million barrels this year. During his first two years in office, the Biden administration approved more than 6,400 permits for oil and gas drilling, exceeding the number of approvals during former President Donald Trump's first two years.
According to a CBD analysis released Monday, drilling projects that the Biden administration has approved could "erase" emissions-reduction progress from the Inflation Reduction Act, the president's signature legislative achievement.
"The Biden administration is canceling out its own climate progress by greenlighting major oil and gas projects," said Shaye Wolf, CBD's climate science director.
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Climate Advocates Blast GOP Funding Bill as "A 'How-To' Manual for Destroying the Planet"
"While Americans take refuge from record-setting extreme heat and suffer from wildfire smoke, the House majority proposes slashing environmental funding to the lowest level in 30 years."
Jul 18, 2023
Legislation that the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee is set to mark up on Wednesday would take an axe to U.S. climate spending, cutting the Environmental Protection Agency's budget by a staggering 39% while promoting fossil fuel development as huge swaths of the planet face devastating heatwaves.
Kyle Jones, director of federal affairs with the Center for Policy Advocacy at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said in a statement Tuesday that the Republican bill is "historically bad... the worst of its kind we've ever seen."
Jones went on to say that the legislation—one of a dozen appropriations bills currently moving through the House—"reads like a 'how-to' manual for destroying the planet."
"While Americans take refuge from record-setting extreme heat and suffer from wildfire smoke, the House majority proposes slashing environmental funding to the lowest level in 30 years," said Jones. "This is a non-starter, based on galling scientific ignorance and reactionary politics."
Made public last week amid record-shattering heat and other extreme weather across the U.S., the GOP's Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies funding bill calls for $4 billion in total cuts to the EPA budget—slashing the agency's clean water funds, emissions-reduction grants, and other programs.
The bill would also cut the Interior Department's budget by $721 million, remove the Gray Wolf from the list of endangered and threatened wildlife, and prevent the EPA from considering the social cost of carbon in any regulatory action.
Meanwhile, the Republican legislation aims to bolster the industry fueling climate chaos by requiring the Interior Department to hold at least two offshore oil and gas lease sales in both the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska each year.
"The bill includes an exhaustive list of anti-environment riders that seek to derail any effort to combat climate change and undermine clean water and clean air protections," Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), the top Democrat on the House Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, said during a hearing on the measure last week.
Republicans "give an open invitation to exploitative oil, gas, and mineral leasing by blocking environmental regulations and even overriding judicial review," Pingree added. "At the same time, the bill suppresses clean energy production."
"This effort by the Republican House majority is a slap in the face to the millions of Americans suffering through weeks-long heatwaves and devastating floods."
The NRDC's Josh Axelrod and Valerie Cleland wrote in a blog post that the legislation marks "the Republican majority's latest in a series of attempts to hand over our public lands and waters to Big Oil."
"To say these provisions would have devasting impacts on both climate and communities would be an understatement," Axelrod and Cleland added. "This effort by the Republican House majority is a slap in the face to the millions of Americans suffering through weeks-long heatwaves and devastating floods and who are looking to Congress for solutions to meet this historic and challenging moment."
As their appropriations bills make clear, House Republicans are looking to enact painful cuts across the federal government, drawing vocal opposition from congressional Democrats and increasing the likelihood of a shutdown.
Late last week, as Common Dreams reported, a GOP-controlled subcommittee advanced an agency funding bill that would cut the Department of Education's budget to below the 2006 level and slash programs that help employ hundreds of thousands of teachers nationwide.
Additionally, as The Washington Post noted Tuesday, "a series of GOP bills to finance the federal government in 2024 would wipe out billions of dollars meant to repair the nation's aging infrastructure, potentially undercutting a 2021 law that was one of Washington's rare recent bipartisan achievements."
"The proposed cuts could hamstring some of the most urgently needed public-works projects across the country, from improving rail safety to reducing lead contamination at schools," the Post added.
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